Stingray Geophysical Limited – a leader in seismic Permanent Reservoir Monitoring (PRM) solutions to the upstream oil and gas industry, was named winner of the 2010 Team Award for its Stingray FosarDeep® Team entry at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Innovation Awards ceremony in London on 24th November 2010.

Judged by a panel of engineering experts, the IET Innovation Awards celebrate excellence and innovation in the engineering, science and technology industries in a prestigious competition that this year attracted a record number of outstanding entries from around the globe. Having been “exceptionally impressed” by the FosarDeep team’s performance, the judges described the overall conduct of the project as “a textbook demonstration of innovative engineering".

As we approach the end of easy-to-access oil and gas worldwide, and operating companies head into ever deeper waters and produce oil at greater distances from established infrastructure, so more cost-effective, lower risk seismic imaging and enabling technologies - such as fibre-optic PRM - are being sought to increase recovery rates.

Partially funded by the Technology Strategy Board, the FosarDeep programme was established by Stingray Geophysical in 2008. Drawn from leading organisations acknowledged as technical experts in their fields, partners in the multi-disciplinary team comprise Atlas Elektronik UK , experienced fibre-optic cable and sensor manufacturers, VerdErg Connectors , providers of underwater engineering expertise, and the world leading Optoelectronics Research Centre at Southampton University.

Working collaboratively to develop the equipment and methods required to install Stingray’s Fosar ® optical sensing arrays efficiently in water depths up to 3,000m and successfully transmit signals over long distances to enable through-life monitoring of offshore oil and gas reservoirs, the team “showed exemplary teamwork in overcoming major technical challenges in a severe environment”. By considering the product and its delivery mechanism as an integrated requirement, the interdependent elements of the deepwater PRM solution were able to leverage the small size, high strength and data quality capabilities of optical fibres to achieve technical innovation.